The subject matter described and/or illustrated herein relates generally to an electrical connector assembly that is configured to interconnect connectors that have different orientations with respect to each other.
Some communication systems, such as a blade server system, include a large backplane (or midplane) circuit board, which is generally referred to as a backplane. The system also includes a plurality of card modules (e.g., line cards, server blade cards, switch cards, I/O cards). Some of the card modules may be coupled to a front side of the backplane, and other card modules can be coupled to a back side of the backplane. The card modules coupled to the front side extend parallel to each other, but orthogonal to the card modules coupled to the back side of the backplane. For example, the card modules along the front side may extend vertically, and the card modules along the back side may extend horizontally. The front side card modules and the back side card modules are communicatively coupled to one another through the backplane.
In some systems, a pair of header connectors are mounted to the backplane and oppose each other with the backplane between the header connectors. Each header connector has a mating interface that faces away from the backplane and board contacts that are electrically connected to the backplane. Each of the header connectors is configured to engage one of the card modules at the mating interface. For those systems having an orthogonal architecture, the board contacts of each header connector are rotated and/or shaped before engaging the backplane. For example, each differential pair of board contacts may be rotated about 45° before the board contacts connect to the backplane. However, the rotated and/or shaped board contacts may present challenges to signal integrity and electrical performance of the overall system. These challenges become even more difficult when the transmission speed and/or density of the board contacts increases.
Accordingly, there is a need for an electrical connector assembly that interconnects connectors having different orientations relative to each other and that can address at least one of the above challenges.